Midwestern states are being warned about a new synthetic opioid.
National drug researcher Dr. Alex Krotulski says Cychlorphine has turned up in 20 states in the last nine months.
"So cychlorphine is shown to be about 10 times more potent than fentanyl," Krotulski says.
He says there have been 140 deaths nationally tied to it so far. Fentanyl remains the leading cause of opioid drug overdoses in Missouri. State health officials note, however, the overdose rate has fallen by over 20-percent because of the overdose reversing treatment naloxone.
Krotulski says Cychlorphine appears to produce the same effects as fentanyl.
"They do both produce respiratory depression," Kortulski explains. "And certainly that's the main alarm when we think about opioids is that respiratory depression and people stop breathing when they use opioids."
Krotulski says it appears overdose-reversing treatments such as naloxone are effective on it.
Missourinet